Long-term oncologic outcomes of hand-assisted laparoscopic radical nephrectomy for clinically localized renal cell carcinoma: a multi-institutional comparative study

We aimed to assess the long-term oncologic outcome of hand-assisted laparoscopic radical nephrectomy (HLRN) compared with open radical nephrectomy (ORN) in patients with clinically localized renal cell carcinoma (RCC). We retrospectively reviewed the data from 1098 patients who underwent radical nephrectomy at five institutions in Korea between 2000 and 2011 for clinically localized RCC. One hundred ninety-seven patients in the HLRN group were compared with 901 patients in the ORN group. Univariate and multivariate analysis assessed the effects of operative method on oncologic outcomes. The median duration of follow-up was 69 months for the HLRN group and 63 months for the ORN group. No statistically significant difference was found in the operative time (170.2 minutes versus 168.9 minutes, P=.793) between the HLRN and ORN groups. However, estimated blood loss was significantly lower in the HLRN group than in the ORN group (245.9 mL versus 422.4 mL, P